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What We Liked

‘All-you-can-eat’ veg thali at a cheap price.

What We Disliked

The restaurant isn’t clean and the food can be a bit bland.

Summary

Sreepadman is one of the best Varkala restaurants for budget travellers. Here you can enjoy an ‘all-you-can-eat’ South Indian vegetarian thali at a cheap price. If you’re looking for quality food, try elsewhere; however, if you want to save some money, have a thali.

Varkala Restaurants: Sreepadman

One of the Varkala restaurants on Temple Road, Sreepadman is a no fuss diner that is generally full of locals and budget conscious travellers. The floors might not be clean, the walls have cracks in them and the outback dining area can be full of insects. People come here for their South Indian vegetarian thali. This is an ‘all-you-can-eat’ money saving lunch, that can keep you full long into the evening.

On our first visit, we ordered a South Indian vegetarian thali for lunch.

The South Indian Vegetarian Thali came with five small servings – dal, sambar, fried beans, mixed vegetables in a coconut curry and a vegetable in yogurt sauce. The thali comes with either rice or porthas so we ordered the porothas.

The best dishes were the dal and the vegetable in yogurt sauce. The other vegetable options were alright, but you have to remember that the entire meal is less than $1 and it is all you can eat. We had this dish more than once and each time there were different vegetable dishes. Most of them were bland and a bit overcooked. This is due to the food being cooked in large quantities early during the day and probably served a few hours later.

We returned to Sreepadman the following day for lunch again. This time we tried the Masala Dosa and the Egg Curry with Porathas.

Masala Dosa is a great South Indian dish which can be eaten at any time of the day or night. The Masala Dosa we ate here was average.

The pancake was crisp but the curry inside was a bit bland and you really needed to have the coconut chutney with it. You can ask for more of this chutney and we would recommend this. It’s a good option for breakfast or a snack. This is probably the best dish we had at Sreepadman, but we have had many better Masala Dosas both in India and in Indian communities elsewhere in the world.

The Egg Curry had a great sauce but we expected to get two eggs in a dish that costed more than an ‘all-you-can-eat’ lunch time thali. The Porothas were nicely cooked but were only slightly warm. This was typical whenever we ate at Sreepadman.

Overall, Sreepadman can be classified as a budget cafe, and although the price is cheap, the food is pretty average. Of all the Varkala restaurants, this one has the best value.